ENG 206 Final, Fall 2004

English 206 Final Exam Fall 2004- 2005 Name:______________________________ Section:________________ Instructor:________________________ Time Allowed: 2 1/2 Hours 1. You work for Gomoll Research and Design and serve on the same field research team as Kate Gomoll. You have conducted several site visits as part of your field research work for Sonic Solutions on their MYDVD 4 software, and you have just finished interpreting your results. Address a progress report to Sonic Solutions’ manager of Information Technology, Scott Stewart, indicating the status of your work. Use the relevant ideas in passages A, B and C to write your report. Use your discretion to supplement this information with needed details from your general knowledge. 1.1 Before writing the report, analyze the situation by answering the following questions briefly. (10 pts.) 1.1.1 Identify two possible secondary readers for your progress report. Justify your answer. (5 pts.) _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 1.1.2 What would be an ethical concern 1.1.2.1 related to the implementation of the field study ? (2.5 pts.) 1 _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ 1.1.2.2. related to the writing of the progress report itself? (2.5 pts.) _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ 1.2 Write your report in the memo format on pages 3 and on. (Use the back of the sheets for drafting if needed. You will not be given extra sheets of paper for drafts.) 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____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 6 2. Write the email that you and your team sent to recruit participants in the initial stages of the field study (mentioned in passage C). After analyzing the situation and considering your audience , use the appropriate approach, style and tone and include all necessary details. 2.1. Write your email on page 8. (Use this page for drafting.) 2.2. Send the email to a list of registered customers (as mentioned in passage C). (40 pts.) 7 ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 8 ENGLISH 206 FINAL EXAM FALL 2004-2005 Answer Key copy for file Prepared by Malakeh Khoury 1. You work for Gomoll Research and Design and serve on the same field research team as Kate Gomoll. You have conducted several site visits as part of your field research work for Sonic Solutions on their MYDVD 4 software, and you have just finished interpreting your results. Address a progress report to Sonic Solutions’ manager of Information Technology, Scott Stewart, indicating the status of your work. Use the relevant ideas in passages A, B and C to write your report. Use your discretion to supplement this information with needed details from your general knowledge. 1.1 Before writing the report, analyze the situation by answering the following questions briefly. (10 pts.) 1.1.1 Identify two possible secondary readers for your progress report. Justify your answer. (5 pts.) Some of the possible secondary audiences could be other people on your team such as Kate Gomoll (if they had not contributed to writing the report), the participants in the study (the people interviewed or observed), the financial expert in or consultant for Sonic Solutions’. (Accept other logical variations but they have to make sense) 1.1.2 What would be an ethical concern 1.1.2.1 related to the implementation of the field study ? (2.5 pts.) Primarily one related to access to the site of the study and having the proper authorization from the people in charge (usually referred to as gate-keepers, in other words the administrators) and the informed consent of the participants; which requires informing them about the study so that they can make an informed decision whether to participate or not, and which may require promising confidentiality or even anonymity if preferred and requested by these participants. 1.1.2.2. related to the writing of the progress report itself? (2.5 pts.) Related to the complete and accurate reporting and positioning of information (whether verbal or visual), especially including a specific, accurate budget analysis and correct, truthful presentation of problems encountered or anticipated. 1.2 Write your report in the memo format on pages 3 and on. (Use the back of the sheets for drafting if needed. You will not be given extra sheets of paper for drafts.) (50 pts.) Students should synthesize ideas from the three selections (not only from selection C, the interview and penalize student if they don’t). They should also select appropriate information (accept logical variations) from all selections and include it in the approprite places in the progress report. Students should be selective. (Penalize students who include irrelevant information or copy indiscriminately from the selections.) 1 The selected ideas should be presented under the following relevant parts in the progress report: ● Introduction: Identifies project, states the period the report covers (but in this case does not need to state the objective of the project as the reader is supposedly familiar with it). It also specifies the budget allotted for this project (especially that cost is a major concern in this case). ● Discussion of the progress: Uses the progress made-progress expected pattern or task project/ pattern (though I personally find it difficult to apply the second pattern in this case). Students should include most of the information extracted from the selections below. Progress to Date (or any other logical variation of this heading) Before site visits: (primarily based on selection C) 1. Develop a participant screener to ensure people visited are representative users. 2. Make sure key stake holders agree on the mix of participants (as well as interview questions) 3. Get the informed consent and the proper authorization of the participants and the gatekeepers to be on the site. 4. Create a detailed study plan with the sessions and script materials needed for the study. During site visits: 1. The actual techniques and procedures used (primarily based on selections B [the three bullets] & C ) 2. Objectives: Find out about the users’ intentions, context, knowledge, skills, and experience (primarily from selections A [¶s 4-the end], B [1st part of last ¶], & C). 3. The tasks done on site: (primarily from selection C) - Ask users to prioritize their most important and frequent tasks. - Observe them completing their most high priority tasks. a. Capture: steps, constraints, tools, and any social interactions that take place. b. Note process inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement. - Simultaneously interview users based on scripted questions. - Record scenarios, user profiles, storyboards/task maps, etc and a summary report. After site visits: Data analysis/interpretation phase: Look for patterns in data in order to prioritze design opportunities. Budget analysis: Students use their discretion to itemize the cost and to specify whether it is still within the initially planned budget. This may turn out to be one of the problems encountered in this project. 2 Problems encountered: 1. The cost to the organization (selection B[last part of last ¶] & C [1st question & answer]). In spite of the cost it is still worth it (selection B [last part of last ¶) 2. Related to the interpretation of results: Some of the design team’s assumptions turned out to be wrong ?? (base on the last question but one in selection C) Progress Expected Over the Remaining Period (or any other logical variation of this heading) What remains is the design phase: (based on selection C) 1. Design “ MyDVD 4 Tutorial” software based in interpretation of results. 2. Gather user feedback and conduct usability tests to help evaluate and revise designs. Anticipated problems: also costly (but may remain within allotted budget) (optional) ●Conclusion/s 1. Student should include a statement about the overall status of the project. 2. They could probably recommend changes. If they do, they need to explain how these changes will affect the project. (optional) 3. They could offer to give further clarifications through inviting further contact and specifying how and when they can be reached (e.g. “If you have questions, please contact me at ….”). (optional) --------------------------------------------- 2. Write the email that you and your team sent to recruit participants in the initial stages of the field study (mentioned in passage C). After analyzing the situation and considering your audience , use the appropriate approach, style and tone and include all necessary details. 2.1. Write your email on page 8. (Use this page for drafting.) 2.2. Send the email to a list of registered customers (as mentioned in passage C). (40 pts.) The email should use the indirect approach and should be persuasive mentioning some reader benefit. It should provide the reader with enough information about the study and what is expected of this reader in order for this reader to make an informed decision whether to participate or not. The style and tone should be rather formal because this is intended for a group of people, with whom supposedly the writer have not had much previous contact (according to the situation). (Penalize students who use an informal style and sub-standard English because this is an email.) Hope you find this useful and enjoy the correction Warmly malakeh 3 ENGLISH 206 FINAL EXAM Fall 2004 - 2005 Name:____________________ Section:_____________ Instructor:_________________ Time Allowed: 2 ½ Hours Passage A 5 Things to Know About Users "Know Your Users" is the mantra of any good designer. Yet, what should you actually know about your users? Over the years, we've studied the usability of hundreds of product and web site designs. We've seen designs that were incredibly effective for users and designs that fell tremendously short. One emerging pattern in our ongoing research is that design teams that know a lot about their users are more likely to produce user experiences that are usable, effective, and pleasing. When a design team fails to answer a user’s questions, the problem is usually that the team doesn’t know anything about the user. They need to know why a user is coming to the site (his/her 'intentions'). They also need to know that he/she'd, for example, had just come upon a huge sum of money (his/her 'context'). The team also needs to know what a user knows about investing (his/her 'knowledge'), what he/she is capable of doing himself/herself (his/her 'skills'), and the nature of the financial management he/she'd done in the past (his/her 'experience'). The user's intentions, context, knowledge, skills, and experience are the essential things that every designer needs to know. Without this, the team is going to design something that seems useful, but they'll never know if it actually helps the user. Unfortunately, these five things are beyond what normal market research can tell us. Market research can tell us age groups, income levels, geographic regions, even purchase behavior. But it can't tell us the key things we need to know. Intentions are key, because they tell us what the user is trying to accomplish. They dictate the tasks on the site. A high school senior who is shopping around for the right college has different intentions than the student who is ready to apply for early admission. Both of these intentions dictate different design requirements. Context is also important. Someone who is faced with putting their first PowerPoint presentation together will interact with the application's features differently if the presentation slides are due in 3 weeks than if they need to ready for a board meeting this afternoon. For example, they'd be less likely to explore all of the application's chart customization capabilities when rushed and therefore need the defaults to be acceptable for important meetings. They wouldn't play with a how-to tutorial or try lots of ambiguous menu options, just to see what they do. Knowledge, skills, and experience are also critical. The user's knowledge dictates the terminology and concepts that they are familiar with. Someone with a medical background will know the difference between hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. 1 However, a parent of a newly diagnosed child with diabetes might confuse these two life threatening (and very different) conditions. Designers might choose terms like "Low Blood Sugar" and "High Blood Sugar" if they understand the user's existing knowledge. The user's skillset also dictates design decisions. When designing an intranet procurement process, the designers would create different screens for those materials procured by seasoned buyers, who have been doing purchasing for decades, than for the occasional employee who needs a new computer or office supply. Finally, the user's experience is a design factor. An experienced business traveler would know to avoid certain airports at certain times of the year, like Chicago's O'Hare in the winter, because of likely weather delays. A clever reservation system might recommend an alternate hub, such as Charlotte or Dallas, which doesn't run into the same problems. Excerpted and adapted from Spool, Jared M. (2002, December 2). 5 things to know about users. User Interface Engineering. Retrieved from http://www.uie.com/articles/five_things_to_know/ Passage B Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs Field Studies in Action: Over the years, we've conducted many field studies for our clients. In each study, we've learned amazing things about how people behave, giving us incredible insight into how we should design interfaces for use.  We've watched people shopping in malls, giving us insight into how they manage shopping lists and purchase items on impulse. From this we've learned a lot to guide successful e-commerce designs.  We've spent weeks sitting alongside system administrators, watching how they interact with software documentation as they solve problems and maintain systems. We garnered new perspectives on the roles of printed and online documentation, helping us understand the unique problems that each medium favors.  We've followed paperwork through large manufacturing facilities, seeing who touched it and what they needed from it. From this, we learned the subtleties of the manufacturing information and how the seemingly minor actions of one person in the factory (such as leaving an 'unimportant' field blank) can have dramatic affects on the efficiency of other people later on. Seeing how people interacted with each other using the paperwork gave us a greater understanding of the intricacies of implementing enterprise-wide information systems. The Power of Field Studies: Even a short field study, such as two or three half-day visits, can yield information of tremendous value on what users do and how do they talk about it, on their context i.e. the external forces that will impact the design such as deadlines, 2 and the commonalities that appear across environments, along with the variations that will impact design decisions (such as providing switches, options, and optional features). Field studies give the advantage of delivering the team information they just can't get in any other way. For instance, 'intuitive' interfaces are easier to build when designers have a deep understanding of the users' context, terminology, and processes. However, the biggest downside to field studies is the cost to the organization. Scheduling the visits, taking team members out of the office for several days, and finishing the analysis can have a huge impact on a project's resources. Nevertheless, the most successful organizations look beyond the current project, realizing that the value from the information learned will feed into future projects for years to come. Excerpted and adapted from: Spool, Jared M. (2003, August 6). Field studies: The best tool to discover user needs. User Interface Engineering. Retrieved from http://www.uie.com/articles/field_studies/ Passage C Designing Products That Work the Way People Work: An Interview with Kate Gomoll Kate Gomoll is a recognized expert in the area of Field Research and Usability Testing. UIE's Christine Perfetti recently had the opportunity to talk with Kate about how she and her team at Gomoll Research & Design conduct field studies. Here is what Kate had to say about her experiences. UIE: Many of our clients say they stay away from conducting field research projects because they are too expensive and time-consuming to implement. Why should designers invest the time and resources in field studies? Kate Gomoll: Nothing replaces the power of direct observation. Designers can gain so much information from watching people in their actual work environment and capturing a user's unarticulated needs. The work we conduct takes place in the participant's environment — such as home, work, stores, banks, and hospitals. Our findings are based on realities, not preconceptions. As a result, design teams can get much closer to their customers. Users will “show and tell” them things they would incorrectly consider unimportant in a focus group, interview, or usability test. Also, in our experience, what people say rarely matches what they do. People don't remember the steps of a process, especially if it's something they do all the time. They may tell you something is easy, but when you actually observe users doing that task in a field study, you can see all the problems and inefficiencies they didn't recall or couldn't articulate. In your full-day seminar at UI9, you and Ellen Story will demonstrate how to plan and conduct a field study. Can you describe the major steps involved? 3 Before the field visit, we develop a participant screener to ensure that the people we are visiting are representative users. We always make sure that key stakeholders agree on the mix of participants we will visit so there is no debate about the appropriateness of the participants after the data analysis. We also create a detailed study plan with the session script and all of the materials we need for the study. A typical site visit lasts 1.5 – 2 hours. We spend the first part of our visit asking users to prioritize their most important and frequent tasks. We then observe them completing their most high-priority tasks. As we watch the user, we capture the steps, constraints, and tools needed to accomplish their tasks and any social interactions that take place. We also note any process inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement. Our sessions are a blend of interview and observation. We observe the user as much as possible, but we also gather data from contextual interviews. We have a basic script for the session, with interview questions and observation opportunities. But, we move around in the script, asking questions when they are relevant and weaving observation opportunities between questions. That's the best way to make sure we get as much data as possible for our efforts. Do you have any tips for conducting the contextual interviews with users? My colleague, Ellen Story, and I have worked out a really good approach to “tag-team interviewing.” We have a study script that we work from, but we are quite flexible with it. Ellen will ask a question, and while the participant is answering her question, I will look through the script for the next logical question, based on the participant's response. This helps the session feel more natural and informal. It also speeds things up, because we can do the same thing with our observation opportunities. Having our questions worked out ahead of time and reviewed by stakeholders also helps us avoid asking leading questions. Of course, the ability to work with people and draw out their honest responses takes some practice and finesse. The more we do this kind of work, the better researchers we become. How many customers do you recommend visiting in the field? We recommend 5-8 participants within a segment. So, the total number depends on how the design team decides to create segments. How do you determine how many user segments are necessary? Before we determine the user segments and the number of participants, we typically ask the clients to assemble a group of key stakeholders. This group typically includes people from the development team, marketing, engineering, usability/user interface, a